


The Dust Which Was Once Life.

by FeliciaAmelloides



Series: A Oneshot a Day... [18]
Category: Wings of Love
Genre: Angst, Gladiators, Grieving, Original Characters - Freeform, Own Fandom, fight
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-18
Updated: 2018-01-18
Packaged: 2019-03-28 17:24:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,438
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13908729
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FeliciaAmelloides/pseuds/FeliciaAmelloides
Summary: The arena is a brutal place to be, particularly for its staff. In a post-apocalyptic world where all of humanity lives in the sealed off kingdom of Aventea, criminals who have committed severe crimes are punished by being sent to the arena to fight for their lives. One such gladiator has committed no crime other than befriending the underground witch coven and guarding their secrets, something which he was once certain that the regime didn't know about. So other than that, he doesn't know why he's there or what these people want from him. In the midst of a fencing death match with one of his only friends at the arena, he ponders why his life has become such a mess and if there's any point in hoping at all.





	The Dust Which Was Once Life.

**Author's Note:**

> This is an original plot line which I have been working on for several months now, and I'm really excited to get to write about it! Actually, the plot and characters are for a manga that I'm making.
> 
> It was originally intended to be a parody of yaoi manga, so the main two characters had prince/gladiator dynamics and were exaggerated 'seme' and 'uke' types.   
> However, I became very attached to my characters and eventually rewrote and redrew them entirely, giving them proper backstories and depth to their characters and also reducing their seme/uke traits because I didn't want them to seem stereotypical or cliche. As such, I reversed their roles in the story so the gladiator is an uke and the prince is a seme (although that's only really a template so I didn't make one too dominant and the other too submissive).
> 
> I hope that this turned out well, since it wasn't going to be used for this prompt at first- a friend persuaded me!

Chapter Text

The roars and screams of the crowd were deafening, but over his time in the arena hey became more muted- white noise against the agonising wails of his victims as they fell to the ground, faces blotched with sand and skin tainted with fresh blood. He had murdered so many people, and yet the crowd always screamed his name from their seats as if he were the greatest person in Avantea.

Fumetsuno 'The Immortal', they called him. As well as his name meaning the same thing in some ancient tongue, he had never lost a fight, and therefore he still had his life. From his first time in the arena, he had been wide eyed and hopeful, desperate to escape and find his sole remaining family member- a sister not even related to him by blood. But as time went by, he realised that there was no hope for escape from this place unless it was through the gates of Hell, and his sister was probably dead.

When he entered the arena, there was no time for emotion. He'd take a weapon, raise it and fight whichever former comrade stood before him. People bet good money on him- he surely made them rich every fight. And it hurt, it hurt so much, to know that that was all he was good for. He fought. He killed. He further tainted his hands with blood, further tainted his soul with sin. All for the sake of a crowd's entertainment and a few coins in a rich man's pocket.

There before him stood Alex, another fighter with a strange name. Most did not possess such short and simple names, but he had told him long ago that he didn't care for the length and eloquence of a name when he was doomed to die anyway. Fumetsuno found one day that he had began to agree. His sisters both had had short names, and eventually he referred to himself with a shorter name too, one that they had once called him long ago.

Alex was a friend of his. They had always wished each other good luck before battles, tried to plan out ways to escape and share food at mealtimes. Memories of the warm sand and the sun beating down on their backs as they sparred in the training yard, grins on their faces as they lunged and parried, lunged and parried. Now one of them would die.

Fumi looked up for a brief moment at the royal box, high above the peasant stands. There the King stood with his hands on the railings, gazing out at them with a cool glance. Never had Fumi ever seen a glimpse of emotion in that man's face. Next to him, on his right hand side as was customary for the crown prince, stood his commander in chief of the Royal Army, General Vance Piedmont. Fumetsuno shuddered, the air around him suddenly feeling very cold. Just thinking that name made him more than ready to strike and kill with his blade. That there was one of the most wicked men he had ever known. The man who had killed his sister.

Biting back his emotions with bitter fury, Fumi averted his eyes from the source of his life's endless misery and instead looked to the King's left. There, just as expected, was the crown prince himself, not standing in his customary place but rather the place that his father wanted him to be. Quintillus had already been watching him, and they met eyes across the stretch of screaming lions so easily that it didn't seem quite real. He still couldn't believe that the prince had met with him in the dark all those months ago, begging him to end his life so he wouldn't have to watch his kingdom fall. But now Quintillus was more than willing to grin and bear it until his father died and he finally had the power to kill Piedmont and take the throne for himself. Until then, all he could do was survive. And Fumetsuno supposed that he would have to do the same.

With a crash of cymbals, the battle begun. Alex ran at him, sword drawn, and Fumi swiftly beat his blade aside, quickly reaching into a remise. His blade nicked Alex's right shoulder blade, and he internally scowled at the miss. Of course, he didn't want to kill the young man who he had shared so much with. But of course, he didn't have a choice in the matter. He meant absolutely nothing to the world, and all he was was a pawn in these people's game. Once he had been a part of them, and now he was just their toy. It hurt.

Alex threw in a perfect riposte on his next attack, sending a gash across his stomach. The pain was just as muted as the crowd; irrelevant as long as it didn't kill him. He lunged forwards, deftly deflecting Alex's next attack as he aimed for his heart. Again he missed, and again he hated himself for not letting his friend die as he should.

They continued in a never ending stalemate- lunge, parry, counter, riposte- reopening old scars and dousing themselves in blood. Fumi's dark vest was ripped in several places, and adrenaline throbbed in his veins instead of blood. Alex appeared to be much the same, the beige of his vest stained dark red. They both tried to catch their breath, sweat dripping down their weakened bodies. Once more Fumi found his eyes drawn to Quintillus, violet meeting green in a locked, heated gaze. The prince was encouraging him, he realised. He wanted Fumi to win.

As Alex continued to take deep breaths, Fumi forced his identity and feelings down into the depths of hell where they should be. The broken shell known as The Immortal then charged into his target, renewed vigour putting all of his energy into a deciding blow. Alex screamed involuntarily, caught off-guard, and just as he reached up to fight off Fumetsuno's blade, the sword was lodged deep into his chest.

Dirty blond hair matted to his face, hazel eyes already glazing over, Alex sank to the dusty surface of the arena, dirty, bloody and so close to death. It was then that Fumetsuno let his emotions flooding back in, sinking to the earth after his once friend and holding onto him tightly.

"Hey... Fumi..." the choked whisper of his newest victim was something that Fumi already knew would be burned into his soul forever. He put on a smile for his friend as the crowd screamed and jeered at his clear signs of weakness. 'The Immortal' always left his fights with tears in his eyes, they knew that and hated him for it, but he didn't care. If they were in the arena, if they were murdering their friends and comrades for other people's entertainment, then maybe they would do the same.

"Tha...nk you." Alex tried to reach up towards Fumi, but the young man's blade was lodged too far into his chest, and he had lost too much blood already. The tears started to fall like the first drops of rain as he took a final breath, and closed his eyes. And Fumetsuno could do nothing but weep, frustrated at the hopeless inevitability of his life as a gladiator for the King, hating the regime and every wrong it had brought to the world, and feeling most of all a complete and utter despair at the fact that the only sweet release from their torturous death sentence was death itself. Even those lonely nights below the trees with Quintillus weren't enough to satisfy the aching in his soul.

Sometimes he really did just want to let himself die, if only to see the savages above him weep and wail at all of the money they lost in his dying moments. Maybe if he was lucky he could meet eyes with Quintillus one more time before his heart stopped beating.

He placed a bloodied, scarred and calloused hand over his friend's face, tracing the contours with a numbness which accompanied his murders once he had done enough of them. It was over now. And he had to survive, if only to help Quintillus as much as he could in saving this place from itself. It wasn't much, but he had hope.

And in a place like this, even the tiniest speck of hope was enough to want to cling onto life and know that someday, one day, it would al be over.

He just hoped that that day would come soon.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope that you liked my plotline! I don't think it fit the prompt very well, but I tried. I would really appreciate feedback on this oneshot in particular because I want to know how I can improve it. I know that this isn't the whole plot and I didn't explain much about Quintillus and Fumetsuno's relationship or what happened with his sisters, but that was because this is a oneshot and the full story is long enough to be a novel if I'm honest. Still, I'd love to hear from you! Should I keep this as a manga or make it into a continued story? Both? Neither? Does it suck?
> 
> Thank you again for reading and for leaving kudos if you have- if you haven't, I don't blame you ;;>u<
> 
> Prompt- Existential crisis.
> 
> I don't know what classifies as an 'existential crisis' exactly, but hopefully this did it for you!
> 
> Original Number- 18.
> 
> And by the way, there is another prompt somewhere which is about these two characters (Quintillus and Fumetsuno), so when that comes up I'll tell you a weird secret about their origin (it's a really weird origin story).
> 
> Until next time!


End file.
